Table 2, Data Declaration

Crime in the United Statesby Community Type, 2008

The FBI collects these data through the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program.

General comments

This table provides estimated crime statistics for the Nation, Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), cities outside metropolitan areas, and nonmetropolitan counties, and the rate (per 100,000 inhabitants) for each community type, and their estimated populations. For MSAs, cities outside metropolitan areas, and nonmetropolitan counties, the table also includes crime statistics by area actually reporting.

The UCR Program does not have sufficient data to estimate for arson.

Methodology

The data used in creating this table were from all law enforcement agencies participating in the UCR Program (including those submitting less than 12 months of data).

Crime statistics for the Nation and for community types include estimated offense totals (except arson) for agencies submitting less than 12 months of offense reports for each year.

The statistics under the heading “Area actually reporting” represent offense totals for agencies submitting 12 months of data and estimated totals for agencies submitting less than 12 but more than 2 months of data.

The statistics under the heading “Estimated total” represent the above “Area actually reporting” totals plus estimated totals for agencies submitting 2 months or less of data.

The FBI derives national statistics for community types by using the community type estimates for individual states as shown in Table 5.

Population estimation

For the 2008 population estimates used in this table, the FBI computed individual rates of growth from one year to the next for every city/town and county using 2000 decennial population counts and 2001 through 2007 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Each agency’s rates of growth were averaged; that average was then applied and added to its 2007 Census population estimate to derive the agency’s 2008 population estimate.